Gender in Spanish language words


Have you heard the expression “No problemo”? Well, this is actually incorrect. It’s a literal translation of what we want to say: No problem. Literal translations do not work with Spanish or any of the Romance languages.
The actual word in Spanish for problem is “problema”. There is no such word as “problemo”. This is a consequence of knowing the Spanish language words have an assigned gender, so in an effort of giving it a gender people add the “o”

All Spanish language nouns have gender: masculine or feminine. Unfortunately there are no set rules to obtain a word’s gender. Gender cannot be explained or figured out. However, there are a couple of clues  which can help you identify the gender:

For masculine nouns we use the definite article EL to define masculinity. Here you can see SOME examples:

Word Ending
Example
Translation
-l
el hotel
the hotel
-o
el plato
the plate
-n
el jardín
the garden
-e
el parque
the park
-r
el dolor
the pain
-s
el mes
the month
-or (for professions)
el autor
the author

For feminine nouns we use the definite article LA to define femininity. Here you can see SOME examples:
 

Word Ending
Example
Translation
-a
la mesa
la toalla
the table
the towel
-ion, -cion
la canción
la reunión
the song
the reunion
-dad, -tad
la amistad
la ciudad
the friendship
the city
-ora (for professions)
la autora
the author
-ie
la especie
the species
-z
la nariz
the nose
-umbre
la costumbre
the custom

Bear in mind that due to the fact there are no set rules, there are exceptions. For example:
     el problema _ the problem
     la mano _ the hand
     el disfraz _ the costume
     la cárcel _ the prison
     la flor _ the flower

The best way to learn the nouns gender is that when you first learn a word you need to learn its gender in context. It is a matter of learning, practice and practice.
Another tip to know the gender of the words is to verify it in a dictionary. The best dictionary is the Real Academia Española, but you can also use Larousse in Spanish.



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